HARBOR SPRINGS — Throughout the 2024-25 season, it was never really known who was going to be at the top of the race for the Harbor Springs girls ski team.
Truthfully, it never really mattered. It was all about the team. And, in the biggest race of the season, that held true once again.
Competing in their hometown Monday, the Rams stood atop The Highlands of Harbor Springs as the MHSAA Division 2 team state champion for the first time since 2015.
Over the previous nine seasons, the Rams had earned multiple runner-up finishes, including last season, then put all the pieces together this year.
“They’ve always been right there and they just turned it up a notch this year,” Harbor Springs coach Ellen Beatty said. “They wanted it. They wanted it for themselves, for the coaches, just everyone. It takes a village and our community has really embraced these girls. They believed they could do it and they did it.”
The Rams, who earned their 10th girls title as a program, led in both the morning slalom and afternoon giant slalom for a finish with no questions asked, 69-90 over East Grand Rapids.
And, just like the season, Harbor Springs had different leaders atop each race.
“The competition within the team is insane,” Beatty said. “Any one of the girls can come up from the back and get top 10. Tara (Shouldice) came in and got second in GS from the back. You just never know. They’ve raised their own level of competition, which has been really fun to watch.”
That competition has been a driving force all season for the Rams according to senior Mckenzie Bowman.
“It was great and it was really nice too because everyone was super consistent, then people would flip flop too,” Bowman said. “It was great because the competition within our team made us better.”
In the morning slalom, it was Bowman leading with an all-state seventh place finish in 78.57 seconds. In giant slalom, it was Shouldice launching herself up to second place in 67.16 seconds, which included a first place second run.
What was perhaps most impressive for Harbor Springs on the day was that everyone made it across the finish line without a slip. Considering the conditions and the amount of falls on the hill, that was nothing to take lightly.
“I feel like everyone just had to have a really solid run,” Bowman said. “This was one of the first state meets where we’ve had everyone finish and everyone finished well too.”
In giant slalom, Keeler Brainerd earned an 11th place finish in 68.28 seconds, then Drew Bowman was 14th (68.53), Mack Bowman was 15th (68.67) and Quinn Myers placed 17th (68.91).
In slalom, Shouldice also took 16th (81.63), Myers was 25th (82.80), Elliott Baetens took 29th (83.26) and Drew Bowman, 30th (83.78).
Harbor Springs' Tara Shouldice during the slalom race of the Divison 2 state championships at The Highlands on Monday, Feb. 24.
Avery Kita of the Lake Charlevoix Ski Team also placed third in slalom in 76.94, then Rayna Robel of Gaylord placed ninth in 79.00. Petoskey St. Michael’s Josie Kolka then placed 18th in the slalom in 82.20.
It caps a season for the Rams where many – outside the inner circle of the team – believed it was finally Harbor’s year with the talent back this season.
“No pressure,” Beatty said with a laugh. “They had to ski smart. Ski smart and ski strong. And they did it. The seniors, they really pulled them all through and gave awesome course reports.”
Bowman has gone through four consecutive state finals with the Rams, helping them ski to a third place finish as a freshman in 2022, to fifth in 2023 and then second a year ago.
She felt the build up to what could be an amazing finish to her final season and then went out and made it happen.
“With last year, we only had five girls on the team and we got state runner-up, so coming into this year we thought, ‘OK, we had only five and we got runner-up, we’ve got a full team this year and feel like we can win.’” Bowman added. “And, we did.”
Article reprinted with permission from Drew Kochanny, Petoskey News Review. Link to full article is here.